


Joy

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Dead Like Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1623797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reggie is pregnant, and it brings up all kinds of mixed feelings in George.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cherry Ice

 

 

I died when I was eighteen, and I still can't get over it. Roxy says that she's sick as fuck about me whining how I died too soon, when the flush of childhood was still upon my cheeks, and all that shit. Daisy, who loves being eternally young and beautiful, says I should be thankful. I could be a wrinkled and ugly reaper, and according to Daisy, elderly reapers have a lot less fun.

I don't know, though. This fountain of youth bit is starting to really piss me off. I feel kind of like those child vampires in all the books and movies--- all curly-haired and cute on the outside, while inside lies a festering, nine hundred year old corpse.

The weirdest thing is probably watching my family change while I stay the same. If Rube were here, he'd say that I never should have watched my family after I died. But Rube did his last reap two years ago and is probably in that great Waffle House in the sky, so at least that's one person I don't have to hear bitch. Roxy's the leader of our little rag-tag band of grim reapers now, and while she pretends to be all hard ass, the truth is she feels sorry for me and pretends she doesn't know that I still sneak off to see my mom and dad, and of course, Reggie.

Reggie is ten years older now than I was when I died. Twenty-eight. My baby sister is twenty-eight years old. She got married last year; Millie watched from under a large, anonymous black hat. And now, Reggie's having a baby.

* * *

The phone rings after midnight. I mumble for Mason to get it, but it keeps on ringing and I remember he's not there. I fumble for the light, hoping that it's not Daisy on the line, calling me to save her from her latest scumbag boyfriend.

"Hello," I grunt.

"Georgie, it's me." Mason's voice: he's calling from his surveillance mission. "All the lights just went on in the house. The door's opening and--- yeah, I'd say it's definitely time."

"Shit." I sit up in bed. "I'll throw some clothes on. Can you swing by and pick me up on the way to the hospital?

"Sure. I'll see you soon."

I put on a long sleeve t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and the nearest pair of sandals. I'm waiting at the door, nervously watching moths flutter around the porch light, when Mason pulls up in front for the house.

As soon as I get in the car, I ask him, "Did you see Reggie? Did she look okay?"

"She looked good to me, George. Huffing and puffing a bit, but otherwise okay. Beautiful, too. Nice and round, her skin all shiny. You know, I've always found pregnant women to be attractive---"

"Shut up, Mason," I snap. Because I will never be pregnant, and that's part of the reason this is so important. I will never be a mother. Reggie will.

* * *

When I was alive, I didn't think much about having children. Or if I did contemplate such a bizarre subject, I thought, "Shit. Who would want to push a fat, slimy baby out of their vagina when kids are such little bastards?"

My relationship with my own mother was never smooth. We were always fighting over something. She always yelled at me to do what she wanted: get good grades, stay in school, find a real job. By the time I was a teenager, I wanted to do the opposite of whatever my mom wanted, just to piss her off. If you listened to her, you'd think I was the most lazy, abnormal, antisocial kid in the world. But looking back, I think I wasn't much more bitter than your average teenager.

It wasn't until after I died, when I saw my mom shrivel and curl into herself, that I realized how badly I had fucked up. Maybe I'm turning into the type of shit-faced, sentimental, middle aged (if eighteen going on thirty two could ever be considered middle aged) woman I always frowned upon, but I wish I had more time with my mother. I wish I had the opportunity to be a mother myself, to change my kid's diapers and kiss away her tears, to see my mother play the happy grandmother.

After death separated my mother and I even more than we had been in life, I looked for a mother figure in my new life. I didn't admit it to myself. I was strong and independent and couldn't give a fuck about being alone. But Dolores Herbig, "as in her big brown eyes," saw me differently.

She wanted to take me, or rather Millie, under her wing. She told me more than once that I was like a daughter to her. For every cruel joke I made about her, she was the biggest hearted person I ever met. At least when the cancer took Dolores, I was able to be there. I didn't want her to die alone, with only her cats and her reaper. Her adopted daughter was at her side.

I still watch my mom. Her hair's starting to go gray, although she thinks she dyes it well enough that no one notices. (She's wrong.) I wish I could talk to her, even just say hello, but I can't. The only mother I have access to is Roxy. And if you ever tell her she's like a mother to me, I'd have to beat the shit out of you.

* * *

The smell of the hospital is always sickening. Gravelings run down the pastel hallways, yowling. Mason and I ride the elevator up to the maternity ward. Karma, a reaper from the Infants division who doubles as an ob-gyn nurse, is behind the desk.

"Your friend came in about half an hour ago. We barely had time to get her settled before she went into labor. It was one of the quickest deliveries I've ever seen. That girl must have good genes." Her eyes twinkle at the last bit, as if it's our private joke.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" I ask excitedly. Then I see a post-it, neon pink, sticking out of Karma's pocket. "Wait. That's not--- Reggie and the baby, are they both okay?"

She pats the note back down. "Yes, this for someone else." I breathe a sigh of relief. Mason puts his arm around me. "Your friend gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl."

Are those tears streaming down my cheeks?

"Aren't you happy, George?" Mason asks, wiping them off, his fingers as gentle as he can make them.

"Tears of joy," I say, and that's when I see my mother, rushing down the hallway to meet her new granddaughter, finally embodying her name. Joy.

 


End file.
